The Carnie Elves Incident
by Ivory Tower
Summary: What will the rest of the fellowship do when Legolas is kidnapped by the vengeful King of the Carnie Elves? Features frozen yogurt, many fried foods and a lovable pair of Siamese dwarves. Fun for the whole family! Or not.


Title: The Carnie Elves Incident  
  
Author: Ivory Tower  
  
Disclaimer: The late J.R.R Tolkien and his estate own all Lord of the Rings characters and concepts. I own all rights to Jacques and Conrad, the Siamese dwarves.  
  
A terrible shout roused everyone from their slumber. Frodo and Sam scrambled to untangle themselves from each other while the others scrambled to their feet.  
  
"Woe betides us!" cried Gimli. "Legolas is gone. He has been captured!"  
  
Pippin gasped. Merry looked crestfallen. Gandalf lit his pipe and said, "Hmmm, well who is behind the foul plot this time?"  
  
"Carnie Elves," shrieked Aragorn, examining the specks of dirt on a nearby pebble. "This is no ordinary dirt on these pebbles. Also, one of the Carnie Elves dropped this advertisement."  
  
The ranger held up a piece of parchment that read: The Carnie Elves have struck again! Dare you brave our dirty booths and watered down ale? This flyer is good for 8 free admissions.  
  
Frodo paled and dropped to his knees with a groan. Sam sympathetically rubbed his master's back.  
  
"Is it the ring, Mr. Frodo?" he asked anxiously.  
  
"N-no, Sam. I-It is the memory of the food of the Carnie Elves. Their food gave me such indigestion tis a miracle I am here to tell the tale."  
  
"I want to go home!" cried Pippin.  
  
Boromir looked grave. Then, he died. Everyone was most upset by this.   
  
"How in the Shire are we supposed to rescue Legolas now that we're short one person?" Samwise wanted to know. "The invitation specifies that eight people are needed! What're we gonna do, Mr. Frodo?"  
  
"Be silent!" snapped Gandalf.  
  
"Let's get moving," said Aragorn grimly.  
  
"But...the eighth person-," began Pippin.  
  
"We shall find someone on the way!" snarled Gandalf, picking up his staff.  
  
Frodo looked down at Boromir's dead body.  
  
"Shouldn't we bury Boromir?" he asked.  
  
"No time for that now," insisted Gimli. "Hurry, little hobbits! I heard that the Carnie Elves' Bearded Lady uses mithril shears to trim her facial hair."  
  
Merry and Pippin were especially spellbound by this bit of information.  
  
"Tell us more!" they begged.  
  
Gandalf studied the camp one last time.  
  
"I believe that is everything. We shall divide Boromir's personal belongings amongst ourselves later. On we go!"  
  
The long trek began. Twas a difficult journey; full of peril and pillaging (courtesy of the seven companions). The troop terrorized innocent villagers and even vandalized a Friendly's Yogurt Shoppe when it was discovered the place had run out of decadent chocolate mocha yogurt. Aragorn forced the poor customers to make yogurt parfaits until the hobbits were appeased. Gandalf sat at a booth, smoked and read the paper during the incident.  
  
Meanwhile, poor Legolas was being subjected to the most vile atrocities at the hands of the dirty Carnie Elves. He sat at a cheap rectangular table and watched the assorted riff raff demonstrate their "talents" in hopes of nabbing a job at the carnival. So far, Legolas had witnessed: an Urukai painted Smurf blue hula hoop while reciting that fateful scene in "The Empire Strikes Back", where Darth Vedar reveals his true identity to Luke Skywalker; a Mary Sue elf sing Uriah Heap songs in horrible Sindarin; a tattooed hobbit and his "oliphaunt" that strongly resembled a burlap bag with two horns pointed the wrong way for oliphaunt tusks; and a wizard mime with spray-painted silver chest hair.  
  
"Please kill me," Legolas begged of the Carnie Elves. "I cannot bear this talentless trash!"  
  
"Try bearing five thousand years of it, you ponce," retorted the King of the Carnie Elves, whacking Legolas with his scepter, which was, more or less, a baton with plastic gold tassels.  
  
The King of the Carnie Elves was an odd sight to behold for he had a bright blond mullet, a black beard and a big black moustache. As a general rule, elves do not grow facial hair so the King of the Carnie Elves, shunned by the fairer elves, had become an outcast. He had gathered oddities of every race to serve under him and maintain his carnival. His jealousy of Legolas' beauty and legions of fan girls forced him to punish our beloved hero.  
  
"Jacques! Conrad!" shouted the King of the Carnie Elves, clapping his hands.  
  
Two Siamese dwarves, dressed in a black and white Harlequin spandex body suit, appeared. One dwarf wore a bowler and the other wore a coif of the finest false curls found in the barging bin at Schmoe's Hand Me Down Rubbish. The Siamese dwarves bowed low before the freak who is the King of the Carnie Elves.  
  
"Your orders, sir?" inquired the dwarf with the bowler.  
  
"Take this girly boy to the Vat of Grease! He shall fry for us this day," spoke the King of the Carnie Elves.   
  
Dun. Dun! DUN!!!  
  
Back on the winding road...  
  
"Keep up, Samwise," ordered Gandalf as Frodo's hobbit slave-I mean gardener, lagged and tugged on a large cooler of frozen yogurt. Gandalf had enchanted the cooler to keep the frozen yogurt at its absolute freshest. Yum!  
  
"I have to go to the toilet," whined Pippin.  
  
Gandalf sighed and said, "Fine. Take five, everyone. Aragorn, halt!"   
  
The wizard pulled the leash attached to the ranger's neck. Aragorn sat on his haunches and took a break from sniffing the way to the carnival. Gimli opened the enchanted cooler and sat down to enjoy a delicious banana pudding frozen yogurt with crumbled lembas for topping. Frodo suddenly looked ill, again, and fell down.  
  
"The...The...Carnie Elves' funnel cakes...I can smell them! My intestines are writhing from the memory!"  
  
"Mr. Frodo!" cried Samwise and rushed to his lover's-uh, master's side.  
  
"Why can't Aragorn smell the funnel cakes? He's a ranger." Merry pointed out.  
  
Gandalf whacked Merry in reply. How he loved whacking those little hobbits! Whack! Whack! Whack!  
  
"Ow!" cried the little hobbits. Gandalf was lethal with that staff!  
  
Suddenly, Aragorn pulled out a conch and held it to his ear.  
  
"I hear music," he whispered. "The Carnie Elves are near."   
  
The brave Estel drew his sword. Gandalf yanked the leash.  
  
"Stay!" he commanded. "We must hide the enchanted cooler of frozen yogurt before going into battle. Samwise Gamgee, get your fat ass over here and stand in front of the enchanted cooler!"  
  
"I won't leave Mr. Frodo!" sobbed Samwise.  
  
"I know!" piped up Pippin brightly. "Let's just eat all the frozen yogurt."  
  
Silence. The seven looked at one another. Wordlessly, they simultaneously dove at the enchanted cooler. A fight broke out as it was every man, dwarf, hobbit and wizard for himself.  
  
"Ooof! Help! He's sitting on me!"  
  
"Out of the way, little hobbit! That Strawberry Sunrise is mine!"  
  
"Aragorn's hogging all the chocolate twist!"  
  
"Ugh! Gandalf's beard is in my blueberry-vanilla parfait!"  
  
When the frozen yogurt was depleted, everyone sighed with satisfaction. Gandalf pulled out his pipe and the seven leisurely strolled towards the aroma of funnel cakes and the sound of crazy elfish carnie music.  
  
In the kitchen of the damned...  
  
Legolas sweated profusely as he rushed to carry out the orders of Conrad and Jacques, the twisted Siamese dwarves. He longed to cry when he thought of the horrible hairnet covering his beautiful golden locks.  
  
"And after you finish frying those cheap imitation Hostess Cupcakes, fry the lard! Fry the rose petals! Fry this fine wafer of lembas until it is nothing but a cholesterol drenched time bomb waiting to explode in our hapless customers' arteries!" bellowed Conrad, the dwarf wearing the bowler.  
  
"And after that, we shall all settle down for a soothing cup of jasmine chamomile tea," breathed Jacques, checking his coif of beautiful false auburn curls in the reflection of the mirrored Vat of Grease.  
  
"This is not happening to me," stated Legolas numbly.   
  
The poor Prince of Mirkwood was in absolute shock. No one should be forced to work under such circumstances.  
  
Suddenly, loud shouts were heard near the pavilion that housed the Vat of Grease.  
  
"Whatever could that be?" gasped Jacques, pausing in applying his favorite shade of lipstick: Mystical Mauve.  
  
"Sinclair probably got drunk again," growled Conrad, referring to the wizard mime with the spray-painted silver chest hair, who had been hired two days ago.  
  
"How rude!" exclaimed Jacques, pinching his cheeks for color. Any respectable dwarf knows that only whores use rouge, and Jacques considered himself to be a well-bred lady a cut above most tarts out there.  
  
A gong echoed through the carnival. War lust filled Conrad's eyes as he picked up his ax.  
  
"We are under attack! To war!" he shouted and jumped out of the pavilion, spilling all of the fried monstrosities onto the ground.  
  
"You son of a bitch!" screamed an infuriated Legolas. "There goes an entire day's work!"  
  
"Oh, never mind that, dearie. Simply brush off the dirt and serve them as usual," called out Jacques, waving a linen handkerchief as he and his brother marched to take down the enemy.  
  
Pippin turned green.  
  
"Too much yogurt," he moaned, clutching his stomach.  
  
"Be brave. We may be forced to eat the Carnie Elves' food," stated Aragorn solemnly.  
  
Frodo turned very white upon hearing this, but Sam whispered something about a wet banana and Frodo managed a smile.  
  
The King of the Carnie Elves strode out to meet the faithful troop. His mullet was freshly bleached, his black moustache waxed and curled at the tips, and his beard neatly trimmed to a clever point. He wore tastelessly cheap robes of reddish-orange imitation velvet and he impressively twirled his baton so that the plastic gold tassels sparkled in the sunlight.  
  
"So," said the evil King of the Carnie Elves, "I see that only seven were brave enough to attend my lovely carnival. For shame!"  
  
Gandalf looked angry.  
  
"Damn it! I forgot all about finding an eighth person after we vandalized that frozen yogurt shop. Well, Boromir died and it could not be helped. Release of elf, you freak from hell!"  
  
"Ha!" laughed the King of the Carnie Elves with a toss of his mullet head. "Your late friend was wise to have died, for no one can withstand the awesome power of...the Bearded Lady!"   
  
With that, the King of the Carnie Elves flung his tasteless reddish-orange imitation velvet robes to the ground.  
  
Merry and Pippin shrieked. Frodo gagged. Aragorn ducked his head, whined, and retreated behind Gandalf, who suddenly looked thrice his age.  
  
Before them stood the Bearded Lady in all his/her purple pastel lingerie clad glory.  
  
"My god, I was just pulling the little hobbits' stumpy little legs, I swear!" exclaimed an astounded Gimli.  
  
Jacques and Conrad rushed to their freakish master's side.  
  
"Death to all!" roared Conrad.  
  
"Now let's be civil and discuss this over lunch," suggested Jacques. "I make the most divine salmon cucumber sandwiches with a splendid-"  
  
"Shut up and kill these people," ordered the Bearded Lady, whipping out a pair of mithril shears with which he/she began trimming his/her beard.  
  
"Conrad! My cousin!" exclaimed Gimli, then turned to Jacques and said in a subdued tone, "I see you are still wearing the coif."  
  
"But of course," breathed Jacques, powdering his nose because powder is okay to use as it is not rouge.  
  
Gandalf raised his eyebrows.  
  
"You know these outcasts-people?" asked the wizard incredulously.  
  
"They are my kin," replied the dwarf.  
  
"Mutiny!" roared the Bearded Lady. "Very well, I shall use my Tits of Power to destroy all of you!"  
  
Fortunately, the Bearded Lady never carried out this threat because an arrow struck him/her right between his/her eyes and down he/she went.  
  
"Legolas!" cried Aragorn as the elf approached, still holding his bow steady.  
  
Pippin was puzzled.  
  
"Why didn't you do that to begin with and save us all sore feet?" he inquired.  
  
"Because it just now occurred to me to use my bow," replied Legolas, throwing his hairnet aside.  
  
Gandalf lit another pipe.  
  
"Hmmm…well, now that we are here, we might as well eat and play a few games."  
  
"No! Not the tainted food of the Carnie Elves!" shrieked Frodo and fainted into his beloved Sam's arms.  
  
Legolas looked slightly ill.  
  
"Gandalf, trust me, you do not wish to eat the food, and about the only entertainment we have is Sinclair, here."  
  
Legolas gestured towards the drunken miming wizard who waved and then died because this author abhors mimes.  
  
"To hell with it! Let's go to war," shouted Gandalf, pointing forward with his staff.  
  
Everyone roared with excitement, especially Conrad.   
  
Jacques became quite sulky.  
  
"Oh, how I deplore war! What good is war when I can make frozen yogurt pies and homemade potpourri?" asked Jacques irritably.  
  
"You can make frozen yogurt?" questioned Merry with excitement.  
  
"Jacques frozen yogurt is the only reason I haven't surgically separated myself from him," declared Conrad, dusting off his bowler.  
  
"We shall go to war and Jacques shall make us frozen yogurt aplenty!" shouted Gandalf, again pointing forward with his mighty staff.  
  
"Hooray!" replied the hobbits, including Frodo, who'd come to in order to cheer, then promptly fainted again.   
  
Sam had run to grab the enchanted cooler, so Frodo fell face down in the dirt. No one cared, for they were much too excited at the prospects of war and frozen yogurt.  
  
As for the recently deceased Bearded Lady, he/she was reincarnated as a Brittany Spears groupie who drove everyone insane with his/her exceedingly limited vocabulary and high-pitched squealing. The evil Carnie Elves and their shabby carnival were never seen again. 


End file.
